[Dixielandjazz] the Dixieland Jazz dispute revisited

[Bert]

Personally I never had any problems with the term Dixieland.
When I started playing music (Classical at first, at 11 I "discovered" a music to which I responded strongly, is what we might call Jazz in a very broad definition) we were more or less taught at school, and what was at that time also supported by the press, that music called New Orleans Jazz was good, and Dixieland was bad.

New Orleans Jazz stood for: authentic, black, the real thing, uncommercial.

Dixieland stood for: imitation, white, cheap, commercial.

But pretty soon I discovered that I could not live with these simple generalisations. When I listened to a great variety of jazz records, I simply liked those that were well-played. Independed from the fact if they were recorded in N.O. Chicago, N.Y, Japan or Europe. I could have appreciated wellplayed music recorded on the moon, if that would exist. And of course that accounts for skin color exactly the same.

Alas in so many jazz history books we read really terrible generalisations. Black musicians were exploited by record companies, and so on. But if you really start digging deep into it, you might discover that musicians from all backgrounds were exploited. And on the other hand, we can't really blame the promotors and record companies for that actually. Everyone lived in a certain time and society, and just needed to make money. It was not the task of record companies to create high art, they needed to produce little items that hopefully would sell well, and soon, not with the idea that they might be considered great rediscoveries some 400 years later!
As well so many early records had the main objective to improve sales of sheet music. Certainly in 1920's New York jazz records, one can find proof that white musicians were stimulated in recording situations, to play "whiter" than they did at public performances (Read the tragedies around Bix) and black musicians to record "blacker" than they normally did. (Rex Stewart, in Jazz Masters of the '30's, also Russell Procope and Don Pasquall, stating the Henderson band live played waltzes, tangos excerpts from classical music, about everything, but it was never recorded!). No wonder, since the Fletcher Henderson orchestra, like Ellington, played mainly for white audiences.

If one knows music really well, it can't be held for a fact that jazz was a Afro-American invention only.
To start with, without the well-tempered scale, first descibed in writing by the Chinese Chu Tsai-Yu in 1584, and really put into practise in Europe around the days of Johann Sebastian Bach, Jazz as it sounds now, could simply never have existed. Ragtime would not have been possible, but also Giant Steps would have been impossible.

Then another notion, Ragtime has no form of it's own. Ragtime uses the grand form of European march music, nothing else.

The instruments used in jazz, originally were developed in many different countries, saxophone from Belgium/France, individual drums usually stem from Turkey, I think one could argue that the development of the drumset though, might very well stem mainly from the USA. Piano, clarinets, trumpets and trombones stem from Europe. The guitar is a bit unclear, but Spain seems to have had an important place in it's history. The banjo might have some African descent, as does the vibraphone.

To my ears, the most interesting jazz soloist on wind instruments in the '20's were:

  *   Armstrong - trumpet
  *   Bix - cornet
  *   Johnny Dodds - clarinet
  *   Adrian Rollini - bass sax
  *   Coleman Hawkins - tenor sax
  *   Abe Lincoln - trombone

But not every Armstrong record is a masterpiece. I think I have nearly everything he did up till 1947, and there are really quite a few that I wouldn't necessarilry play two times repeated.
But at least Armstrong had the opportunity to record many jazz records.
Abe Lincoln only recorded one real jazz masterpiece in the 1920's, that is his solo on the 1926 version of San. Please check and compare BOTH takes. Nobody in the entire 1920's jazz records that I have listened to, had that ability of variation between different takes. He was a REAL improvising artist. A skill that no Kid Ory, no Tommy Dorsey, no Honore Dutray nor Miff Mole ever came close to. And even Arsmtrong never dared to take so much risk in the studio, on no record I ever heard at least.
But after 1927 allready, Lincoln found better paying opportunities playing lead trombone in studio orchestra's. For a long time he was lost for jazz.

So he choose for the money. But don't let lead that to confusion, EVERY jazz musician at that time did that. Jazz was not considered  art at the time it was developping. It was nothing more than what the German's would call: gebrauchsmusik. So simply music that was USED for all kind of events.
Because they lived in a segregated society, there were different work opportunities for black and white jazz musicians. Esp. after the 1929 economic crisis there was a huge decline of playing opportunities for ALL musicians. But at least Ellington and Henderson sailed through this period with quite steady gigs in the Cotton Club, the Roseland and Connie's Inn. (playing for white audiences almost exclusively, which was the most prestigious, since it were the best paying gigs) White musicians didn't have those opportunities at that time, at least not playing hot jazz.

That historians later found this music valuable enough to study is just great. And there is no denial that jazz slowly evolved into art. Of course there is this fantastic romantic thought about the suffering artist who preferably should die in poverty and hardship to create the highest art. But reality is a little different. To state that "original" N.O. jazz after WWII, was uncommercial and "the Real Thing", actually was a rather smart COMMERCIAL move. Those bands were suddenly encouraged to drop their saxophones, and take up banjo's by some smart business people who thought it would better sell that way. Some records are great, some is just highly out of tune crap.
But to simplify everything by stating that N.O. jazz is good and Dixieland wrong by definition, in my view can't and shouldn't be continued.

Jelly Roll Morton's version of Climax Rag 1939 is nice, but honestly I do prefer Chris Barber's life version from 1959 in Berlin. Morton's slightly over-arranged and what a groove Barber's rhythm could deliver in those days!

So to me the most important factor is: how well is music played? Certainly I am interested in seeying music in it's historic context. But I have seen too many wrong comments that are based on romantic made up stories, not on musical facts. Like Django Reinhardt being burnt down by reviewers for his performance with Ellington in Carnegie Hall. The recordings have not yet been published, but I have heard it. Django at that time simply was capable of outmodernising the entire Ellington Orchestra, and the reviewers were simply not ready for a European who could deliver that!

Very kind regards,

Bert Brandsma





Subject: [Dixielandjazz] the Dixieland Jazz dispute revisited

The last three issue of Syncopated Times have included lively exchanges over use of the term "Dixieland Jazz," based on the reasonable point that "Dixieland" is inherently is associated with images of the Old South. plantation life, slavery, etc. The November issue includes two pages of readers' views, including my ambivalent one, below. —Charlie


I appreciated Joe Bebco’s thoughtful views on the term “Dixieland Jazz” and the exchanges that followed. I totally agree with Bebco that musicians who don’t want that tag applied their music should be respected. I fact, no practitioners of any art should be saddled with labels that they don’t approve of.

But we’ve been dealt a  confusing, stilted hand as we inherited the “Dixieland Jazz” term, with its racist associations. I was born in New Orleans in 1935 and grew up when the term was simply functional--the coin-of-the realm name referring to a style that arose after early New Orleans jazz. To oversimplify, musicians had moved away from rapid vibrato and ricky-tick phrasing of non-jazz (and some early jazz) musicians. The “Dixieland” style was being wonderfully realized in New Orleans, Chicago, New York, and elsewhere by Sharkey Bonano, the Bobcats, Art Hodes, Eddie Condon units, Ben Pollack, Muggsy Spanier, Armstrong’s All-Stars, and innumerable other groups.

The music wasn’t “revivalist” in intent or style but a fairly recent evolutionary development. The terms“revivalist” and “trad" didn’t even appear until around the mid-forties, mainly through the British bands that were enamored of Oliver, Bunk, and Bechet--similar to West Coast conscious revivalists like Bob Scobey and Turk Murphy. I had a few of their records, but Dixieland players and many critics saw the revivalists as reactionary or outright corny. (Bobby Hackett remarked, “It’s certainly funny hearing those youngsters trying to play like old men.”) A rash of bands with tubas and banjos in the rhythm section, varying hugely in quality, emerged in following decades and continues today. A more inventive revivalism flowered only in recent years with groups like Tuba Skinny.

The “Dixieland” term came to be increasingly (and justifiably) regarded as offensive. I’d welcome a new term, but “traditional jazz,” “classic jazz,” “hot jazz,” “New Orleans jazz,” and “Chicago jazz” are either too general or limiting, or they already have other popular meanings. Any new term would have to gain a foothold in the jazz community and ultimately, in general usage. I believe that my choice, “post-foundational/pre-swing jazz” gets to it, but it’s a mouthful.

As a historian, I’ve had to deal with the fact that the “Dixieland” term is embedded in the literature of jazz. I dealt at length with the problem in my 2001 book, Jazz in New Orleans--The PostWar Years Through 1970. I didn’t presume to settle the matter but set out operational definitions so that readers would know what I was talking about when I discussed kinds of jazz. I acknowledged the “Dixieland" dilemma but had no other term to communicate the fundamentally identifiable sub-genre which, through accidents of history, a came to be called “Dixieland Jazz.” I’ll continue to use the term with a short explanation of the historical context, or when a musician or band self-describes with it.




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